Book Month Challenge Day 4: Book That Makes You Cry

This is another hard one because I’m a cryer. I mean, if I re-read Charlotte’s Web tomorrow, I’ll cry at the part when Charlotte dies. So I’m going to just pick a book that made me cry, but that I also think is a really good read.

This story spans three continents, at least three cultures, and two generations. Primarily set is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it is the story of twin boys who lose their hospital nurse/nun mother right after she gives birth to them and are basically abandoned by their doctor father. They are taken in by a pair of married doctors and raised in a loving family, but the brokenness surrounding their original family sinks its teeth into their souls and never lets go. As they maneuver through a life lived primarily on a hospital campus in politically unsound Ethiopia, Marion and Shiva grow up to be two very different people. They move to the States as adults, though they remain estranged until one of them gets sick. Amazingly, they find their biological father, and this helps the tortured twins find healing. There were several parts where I cried. I really loved the mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and I hated it when she died.

I will say that there was a twist ending that I didn’t like. I won’t spoil it because I want you to read the book, but I really hate it when authors throw something in a book just for shock effect, and I think the author did that at the end. (I still cried, though.)

However, overall it was a very powerful book and a beautiful, heart-wrenching story.

3 comments

your answers aren’t all YA books…ha ha. It is funny to me how I am realizing HOW much I tend toward that genre! But I am thinking I may have to go back and read all of your books..this one sounds great. I love a good crying book!

Well, I just finished writing and scheduling the next few posts . . . I think all of the except book you can quote are YA!!! LOL. Oh, well. This was a very deep and complicated book. It was a good story that definitely makes you cry! I think you will like it. BTW, I have a friend who went to HS with Will who posts a lot about books – YA books, mostly. She also sews for a living so there are lots of sewing and crafty posts but I think you can search her categories for book related posts. They are really good. Here’s the site: http://raegunwear.blogspot.com/

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom is the saddest book I’ve ever read, and The Diary of Anne Frank is coming in a close second. I think because of the whole idea that the lives of these women were so affected by the insanity of war and hate of human life. Hope is offered in both stories, and I want people to read these stories, but they make me cry.

(In case it is fiction you are discussing, “Where the Red Fern Grows” could probably still make me cry although I read it long ago.)

Generally I avoid reading sad stories like the plague unless they are non-fiction and then I’m not too keen on reading sad stories, but I will if I can learn more about this life here in this world because God reveals Himself in all places.